The Art of Interpretative Combat
by The Indefatigable Krunk
Summary: A fictional autobiography of a pro wrestler who starts in the backyard leagues and makes his way to the top of the WWF. Chapter 2 now up.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE  
  
In the art of interpretative combat (pro wrestling, to the layman), the term 'sell' refers to the way a wrestler takes a move, as in, selling it to the audience. If he no-sells, he makes it look as if the move doesn't faze him. If he oversells, he makes it look much worse than it should.  
  
I am of the opinion that oversells should be done sparingly, even for the worst and most powerful maneuvers. I like to save it for when a guy introduces a new finisher that should get over, or a big match, like the end of a long and harsh feud, as in the one Psymon Mercy and I culminated on a cold winter's night in a small, barely lit arena, with maybe a couple thousand in attendance.  
  
Luckily, it was taped for a Pay Per View special to be aired later, or I'd have no evidence that that night was one of my premier performances. I sure as hell don't remember much of it.  
  
We had fought a bitter and brutal running battle. We had been tag partners in a little group we called Team Self-Destruction, but as always in this whirlwind sport, things change at the drop of a rating. Our resulting feud was quite successful, and Stan Richmond, the head honcho of Battle Field Wrestling, wanted to finally end it with a bang of a headlining match between the two of us: no rules, no referees, only the last man standing for a 10 count would win. Psymon and I agreed instantly, because that was the style we excelled in.  
  
With the addition of a major promoter wanting to put the best match of the night on a compilation of hardcore wrestling to be shown on PPV as well as distributed on tape, the stakes were even higher. As always, though, we both showed up and showed damn well.  
  
The match had gone on for nearly twenty minutes with no quarter given and none asked. I started by giving him a baseball bat to the gut; he retaliated with a chair to my skull. I kicked him in the balls, and he bodily threw me out the ring. We ended up on the timekeeper's table, trading blows, until he finally managed to bodyslam me through the thing. All this happened before the bell ever rang.  
  
I was able to showcase some of my more spectacular aerial moves and bone-crushing submissions, while Psymon displayed his sheer toughness and raw power. We were bringing out the best in each other and after twenty minutes of unmitigated carnage, were ready for the big finish.  
  
The match hadn't stayed in the ring long, and we had worked our way through the screaming audience and into the lobby. I nailed Psy with a piledriver, set him on one of the autograph tables, and climbed to the second story balcony, ready to hit him with my patented finishing move, the shooting star press. Called one of the most spectacular moves in wrestling today, the shooting star press is a high-risk maneuver wherein the wrestler flips his body counterclockwise, spinning nearly 360 degrees and landing stomach first on his opponent.  
  
Psymon was unmoving on the wood. I stood on the ledge of the balcony, no fear in my body, only a quiet stillness. I signaled the crowd and tossed myself over.  
  
Psymon rolled off the table.  
  
It was a good idea that I had tossed him on the table instead of leaving him on the concrete floor, my original intention. The table broke my fall, and probably my ribs, but my head and neck both stayed clear of impact. Had he been on the floor, I doubt I would be here telling you this story today.  
  
The count began.  
  
1.  
  
2.  
  
3.  
  
Psymon stirred.  
  
4.  
  
5.  
  
6.  
  
He groggily made his way to his feet, swaying like a punchdrunk boxer. Truthfully, boxers had it easy, but there's no term in the vernacular to describe the feeling you get after a twenty minute match.  
  
7.  
  
8.  
  
I should point out for the record that at this time I hadn't blacked out, per se; only grayed out, if that's the proper term. The world was fuzzy and muffled, and my limbs just didn't want to listen to me. I sure as hell wasn't answering a bell, and we could have left it at that. But to the both of us, it was the easy way out and we didn't play like that.  
  
Psymon quite literally dragged me up by my hair on the 9 count. He held me up for a moment, until my arms could move again. We then locked up for what felt like years but was really close to 20 seconds, until I was coherent enough to nod that I was ready for the big ending. I kind of remember that part.  
  
He shoved my head down between his legs and walked me to the front of the lobby, where the glass windows showed the lobby's front steps leading down to the parking lot. I sort of remember this, too.  
  
Psymon grabbed the back of my pants, and I feebly tried to block what was coming by standing up into a back body drop, but he wasn't having it. He stomped his legs down flat, yanked two handfuls of jeans, and hauled me up over his head. Psymon is 6'6, and I got a good view of the audience going ballistic over what was coming next.  
  
It was the last thing I would remember for three days.  
  
Psymon sent my body through the glass with his dreaded powerbomb, and my last concious thought was, ÒDon't forget the oversell.Ó  
  
As my upper back and head hit the concrete, I somehow managed to bounce up and flip over onto my face, then tumble halfway down the stairs.  
  
Needless to say, I didn't answer the ten count.  
  
The camera guy managed to get outside and down the stairs at a speed approximating that of sound, as he got an incredible shot of Psymon with his arms folded across his chest and the light from the arena streaming out into the darkness of the parking lot, staring down at the wreckage of my body with a triumphant look on his face.  
  
I suffered a major concussion, four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a hairline fracture in my forearm, lost two molars, and needed 87 stitches along my arms and back to seal the cuts I sustained going through the window. In all honesty, I'm damn lucky thatÕs all I took away from the fight. I could have punctured a lung with one of those ribs, or crushed my windpipe against one of the steps, or had a piece of glass stab into my body or slash my throat.  
  
When Simon visited me in the hospital, I made sure to thank him for my broken bones and lacerated body. He smiled and then told me the good news. "Rick, we made it onto the tape."  
  
I laughed. "I just put myself in the hospital so that I could pay for the visit. Of course we made it onto the tape."  
  
That is the world I live in. 


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1  
  
Richard Daniel Ginsburg (that's me) came to Oxford, Mississippi, at the ripe old age of 18 with only one desire: to play football for the Rebels.  
  
Football was my life. I had played in my senior year of high school as quarterback and done a good job of it: we made it to the state finals. I was naturally athletic, quick on my feet and even quicker in my head. I figured that I could sign up for the tryouts and wow them into taking me. The ability to pay for school and all that would come afterwards. I was counting on it.  
  
I didn't count on a Manning. Eli Manning, son of the great Archie Manning and brother to the NFL superstar Peyton Manning, was having his freshman year at the same time as me, and although he was just the backup, it was clear that I really had no shot at making it onto the field, even as a third or fourth stringer, through charm and ability alone.  
  
My luck was somewhat intact, though; at the time, Ole Miss had a terrible defense. They were in desperate need of people at nearly all positions. I tried out and made it as the second string middle linebacker, my original position on the junior varsity squad. It gave me a scholarship that, coupled with the academic one I'd earned and the grants I'd managed to get, let me pay for school, but not much else.  
  
The season went well; I saw some game time and even recorded four sacks. As a pass rusher I was great, and playing zone or man-to-man, I was damn near impenetrable. My biggest problem was stopping the run.  
  
I stand barely 6'2, and weighed about 220 of mostly muscle at the time. Not bad, but it wasn't going to stop a 300 pound RB steamrolling his way out of the backfield with the endzone in mind.  
  
But where everyone else saw my size as a liability, I was determined to turn it into an asset. I began using my speed and mobility a lot more against rushers, and studied their styles, focusing on disrupting his center of gravity. And when it came time to hit, I made sure that I hit as hard and as mean as I possibly could.  
  
Needless to say, by the end of the season, the possibility to be a starter for the next year was definitely swinging in my favor.  
  
With football season out of the way, however, I had to find something to occupy myself. I was determined to become stronger and increase my reaction speed to the equivalent of human lightning, but simple weight training and practice drills with the team wasnÕt going to cut it.  
  
I realized I had to get back to my roots. As a kid, I grew up in Hawaii, the melting pot of the Pacific. Growing up there, I was exposed to a good deal of asian culture, and I fell in love with the martial arts. I trained primarily in Shotokan Karate and Tae Kwon Do, although I did have some Tai Chi and Jiujitsu lessons, as well as practicing a little known Hawaiian martial art known as KuiaÕlae, the art of bone breaking, which was the precursor to Kempo.  
  
The bad thing about it was that the school only offered a few beginner Tae Kwon Do courses that I could have taught. The rest of the town wasn't any better: a studio taught Judo and generic Karate once a week each. I was resigned to running wind sprints and maybe taking some yoga classes or something, when one of my drinking buddies, after a pint or two, suggested wrestling.  
  
"Nah, the school doesnÕt even have a wrestling team."  
  
"Not amateur wrestling," he said, enunciating his words to make himself clear. "Pro wrestling. You know, like Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold and all that."  
  
I could only raise my eyebrows at that. I had watched the WWF a lot as a kid, but it was a good 10 years ago when I stopped. I had caught a couple episodes of it recently, but I didn't really have the time for TV these days. And besides...  
  
"Everyone knows wrestling is fake."  
  
"Not this kind of wrestling, Rick. Check it out sometime."  
  
He told me about a backyard hardcore wrestling league that ran every Saturday night in (wonder of wonders) someone's backyard. I hadnÕt heard of anything like it before, but it intrigued me enough to show up.  
  
Now, when you think of wrestling from the 80's, you picture vaguely cartoonish good guys like Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man, or vaguely cartoonish bad guys like the Undertaker and Ric Flair. Back then, the show was like a carnival. It was also mostly devoid of any actually talented workers. When the mid-90's rolled around, there was another boom in the business, as more reality-based characters and storylines became the norm, and most of the wrestlers had to actually learn to work. Guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock were the ones to become famous in the modern era. The average person on the street would likely have known that; but ask them about hardcore wrestling and you'd likely just get a puzzled look.  
  
Needless to say, I didn't know what to expect, but what I got was an experience, to say the least.  
  
I paid ten bucks to get in. There was a bunch of folding chairs organized around the ring, and about half of them were filled. The rest would end up filled soon enough, and people were still filing in, standing up in the back to catch the show.  
  
The ring was set up in some guy's rather large backyard. It was a raised platform of wood cushioned with cotton stuffing. The turnbuckles were just covered with some canvas. The ropes looked to be the most expensive part of the whole setup: some cables, also covered in canvas. They hurt like a bitch to run into, because they had no give whatsoever.  
  
The announcer used a microphone to call out the wrestlers' names. The characters were completely goofy. The Brazilian Barracuda went up against Panther Gold in the opening match. Their fight was so rudimentary, so basic, it almost hurt to watch by today's standards. Most of the rest weren't much better, but they tried their damnedest. The scary thing was, these guys would do moves with only the most minimal training, moves they could seriously injure themselves with.  
  
For some reason, I absolutely loved it, and knew that this was what I wanted to do.  
  
Now, before I go on, I want to say something. Backyard wrestling is dangerous. Period. Many kids have gotten hurt in a bad way trying it. I know three people who are crippled now because they or their opponent screwed up. Some have even died. Yes, I got my start here, and I actually made it, but how many others can say that? Not very many.  
  
It might be hypocritical of me, but I urge any of you out there who want to try backyard wrestling: don't. Go to a real school and learn it the right way.  
  
I'm off my soapbox, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled autobiography. 


End file.
